


What Kind of Crazy Is This

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Near Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 10:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5782177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When someone sits next to her she opens her eyes to snap at them to move, there’s plenty of seating here so there’s no need to crowd her, but she’s met by crystal blue eyes and a hand gently taking hers. “Danny.”</p><p>(set during season 6, spoilers up to 6x10)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Kind of Crazy Is This

**Author's Note:**

> I have always, always had a thing for Kono/Danny. Since that moment in the pilot when Danny shook her hand a little too long. Since getting into the fandom again I've wanted to write a Kono/Danny fic but I have this thing where I don't usually want to go backwards, I want to go from where we are. But how do I do Kono/Danny, while being true to their characters, while Adam is here? 
> 
> Well I don't know why, exactly, but after reading tailoredshirt's [Made My Heart Come All Undone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/260769/), I had my idea... And have spent three weeks writing this. Who the hell would have thought that my longest H5O fic wouldn't be McDanno, lmfao. That fic is amazing by the way, hands down my fave Danny/Kono. There was just something about it that made me go... OH. YES. THIS IS HOW!
> 
> Hope you like it!

Sitting in the waiting room is the hardest part, her hands shaking and blinking tears away because she’s just so damn sick of crying these days. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply a few times to calm herself, clamping her hands on her knees to stop both her hands and legs from shaking.

When someone sits next to her she opens her eyes to snap at them to move, there’s plenty of seating here so there’s no need to crowd her, but she’s met by crystal blue eyes and a hand gently taking hers. “Danny.”

Danny smiles at her and squeezes her hand. “Hey.”

She blinks at him and feels her resolve to not cry begins to dissolve. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” he says, taking a deep breath and rubbing his thumb soothingly across the top of her hand. “Way I see it is usually you take a tumble down the stairs, you pop up, shake it off, and tell me to scram when I fuss over you injuring yourself.” He laughs, tilting his head. “This time I didn’t even have time to ask if you were okay before you were making excuses and getting out of there like a bat out of hell to go to the doctor.”

Kono stares down at her hand in his. It’s been so long since she’s had any kind of intimate touch aside from a pat on the back or a hand on the shoulder. She’s been holding herself away from everybody since Adam got locked up, keeping everyone at arms length. “You followed me here.”

“Didn’t leave me much choice.”

“So the others--”

“Don’t know,” Danny says, and she can feel his eyes searching her face. “We all drove separate to the scene so I called to tell them I was getting lunch.”

“Mrs. Noshimuri, the doctor will see you now,” the nurse says from the doorway.

Danny leaned over, speaking softly. “I can wait here or go with you, up to you.”

“Come with,” she says, swallowing thickly. “I’m… I don’t want to…”

“Of course,” he says, standing and hanging onto her hand until she stands with him. Letting go of her hand he puts a gentle hand in the middle of her back and guides her to the doorway.

The nurse settles them into an office and closes the door, leaving a gown for Kono to change into. She goes behind the curtain and changes and smiles to herself when she comes back out to see Danny studiously studying the magazines in the corner so she can make her way to the bed without flashing her ass at him from the open-backed gown.

“You can stop pretending you care about Cosmo now,” she says as she settles and he turns to look at her, grinning. “But really, how long have you known?”

“Known, today,” he says, walking over to the chair beside her and sitting down, crossing a leg over the other. “Suspected, about a month.”

“Which is exactly how long I’ve known.” She shakes her head, laughing slightly. “How?”

“No beer with us anymore, no coffee,” he says, ticking points off on his fingers. “No seafood. And you start looking green around the gills about 1 o’clock every day.” He smiles. “Rachel didn’t get morning sickness either, she got middle of the night sickness. Like clockwork, 3am hit and she was in the bathroom.”

She rolls her eyes. “Should I be disturbed that you noticed that much about me when the others didn’t?”

Danny waggles his eyebrows. “I told you I was a really good detective.” He laughs at her eyeroll. “Okay, fine, aside from Lou, of the three of us other dopes I’m the one that’s been around this particular block.” He holds up his hand, putting up two fingers. “Twice.”

She winces at the sadness that floats across his face for a second before he’s able to cover it and reaches down to take his hand. “Well, I’m glad you noticed,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Especially today, I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s not okay.”

Danny’s eyes bug a bit. “She? You know? I thought they couldn’t tell till four or five months.”

She shakes her head and laughs. “Just a gut feeling.”

“My sister knew too,” he says, propping his head in his hand, the only sign that he’s not as calm as he’s pretending to be the jostling of his foot. “How you people know I’ll never understand, but damned if she wasn’t right.”

“Danny,” she says, the tears coming back as she hears the doorknob turning and the doctor taking the folder out of the tray outside their room. “What if--”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, calm and certain and reassuring, squeezing her hand between his. “She’s gonna be fine, she’s a tough broad just like her Momma.”

“Mom,” Kono says, laughing wetly and reaching up to wipe away tears as the doctor comes in. “First time anyone’s said that outloud.”

He’s right. She’s fine.

+

“I’m pregnant,” she says, tears falling down her face as Adam’s face crumples and his head bows. “I’m sorry I have to tell you like this.”

“Baby, I’m so sorry,” he says, tears falling down his face easily as he reaches up to spread his palm against the glass and she reaches out to place hers over his. “I wish I was there with you.”

“Me too.”

+

She doesn’t tell the rest of the team until she reaches her second trimester two months later, but it’s not nearly as lonely because Danny reads her better than she ever knew he could and somehow always manages to know when her errands mean actual errands and when they mean doctor visits.

It was never a conversation, they never sat down and had the ‘I’ll be there for you whenever you need it’ talk. She never asked him, he never offered, he was always just there.

He’s the one that figured out that her number one craving was not in fact oranges, like she’d thought it was. It was citrus in general. He would bring her a little something at least once or twice a week. Satsumas, oranges, grapefruit, mandarin oranges, and tangerines.

Once he brought her a kiwi, because, “It’s not citrus but it’s really yummy and it looks like it’s citrusy.” Then he’d shrugged. “So maybe I should’ve looked it up before I bought it. If you don’t want it I’ll eat it.” She’d peeled the fuzzy outside off and eaten half of it before shoving the other half in his mouth, cackling as he sputtered and waved his hands around.

Both Chin and Steve are aggravated-- which Kono is pretty sure actually means they’re hurt-- that Danny knew before they did, but she’d just showed off her crazy hormones to the n’th degree that she was starting to feel and they’d backed off. She’d then swatted them upside the heads and said, “Besides, I didn’t tell him, he figured it out because you two are fucking idiots that don’t pay attention, and Danny is thoughtful and sweet!”

Danny’s grin got him a whole hell of a lot of grief later, Kono’s sure, but the boys never fussed at her again for keeping it from them.

“Mostly, though,” she tells them a few days later, “It’s because they say you’re not supposed to tell people until your second trimester. It’s a jinx thing or something. I love her so much already. I don’t want anything else to happen to her before she’s even born. She’s already gonna be nine months old before she gets to meet her Dad, she doesn’t need any other roadblocks.”

Chin kisses her forehead and Steve gives her a crushing hug, and from then on everything is fine. At least with the team.

+

Her whole life she’d always thought Chin would be her go to person when she was pregnant, and he might would have been if Danny hadn’t been the one to figure it out, but when she’s crying herself to sleep for the third night in a row in her fourteenth week of pregnancy, it’s Danny she calls at ten o’clock at night on a Friday.

“I think I’m going crazy,” she sobs into the phone, hating the way she sounds, hating the big fat tears rolling down her cheeks, hating everything and everyone in the whole entire world in this moment. “I can’t sleep, I can’t stop crying, and I spent three hours sitting in the floor of my bathroom crying because I thought I had bobbypins but I didn’t.”

“Oh, hon, that’s completely normal, you know that right,” he says softly over the phone, and she closes her eyes to let his tone wash over her. “Rachel, when she was pregnant with Gracie, she took off down the road and she was planning on walking back to I don’t know, England or something, because I got a haircut. Who was I trying to impress, getting a haircut, she says.”

Kono laughs but it doesn’t last long, ending in a sad little hiccup as yet more tears rolling down her face. “Will you come over,” she asks finally, winding her hand in her hair as she curls into a ball on her couch. “Maybe I just need a distraction.”

“Of course,” he says, and there’s no hesitation, no hedging, and she has no doubt the answer would have been the same if it had been 2 am, 4 am, or 10 in the morning. Danny hasn’t said no to her about anything in over three months. “Be there in ten babe.”

It’s fifteen, but he comes bearing silk pie and chocolate shakes and hershey’s kisses. She stuffs three hershey’s kisses immediately into her mouth and hands him two forks, the pie, picks up their shakes, and tugs on his hand until they get into the den. She turns on Long Island Medium and curls up on the couch with her head in his lap, slurping on her shake asking him if that is seriously, actually, like, really really a legitimate accent.

“Yep,” he says, his hand idly stroking through her hair. “You should hear my Uncle Sal. You’d die laughing.”

She reaches to put the half eaten pie on her coffee table before rolling over to her back, gazing up at him. “Why are you spoiling me so much,” she asks, licking remnants of whip cream off her lips.

“I’m not spoiling you so much,” he says, grinning, his eyes still glued to the tv. “I’m spoiling you just the right amount.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head, reaching back to smack his leg. “Really, Danny. It’s Friday night and I called you like a crazy person sobbing about bobby pins and instead of rightfully hanging up on my stupid ass, you came bearing gifts.”

He glances down at her and frowns. “I would never hang up on you.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m asking, Danny. Why are you being so good to me?”

He sighs, fingers twitching in her bangs self consciously. “You deserve it,” he says quietly, seriously. “No woman deserves to go through this alone. I saw my sister go through it alone. Stella, Eric’s mom. That piece of shit was out the door the second the pregnancy stick turned pink or orange or whatever the fuck plus or minus signs came up that said their lives were about to be irrevocably changed.”

“You’re a really amazingly good guy, you know that Danny,” she says, smiling and feeling a wave of affection so potent it makes her feel like she’s going to cry yet again but this time it would be okay. “I didn’t know they made guys like you.”

“Hey, stop,” he says, reaching down to brush a tear off her cheek. “I thought I came over here to make you stop crying, not start them anew.”

She laughs and sits up, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “Rachel’s an asshole, just so ya know,” she says, and kisses his cheek again before bouncing up to go to the bathroom, grinning as Danny’s laughter follows her down the hallway.

+

Steve and Danny are bent over the supercomputer, still after six years struggling to operate the damn thing. They’re discussing their latest case when Kono bursts into the room. They both startle, blinking up at her.

“Jesus, bull, I didn’t know I was running China shop here,” Steve snarks, smirking at her.

“You okay,” Danny asks.

She walks over to them and grabs both their hands, slapping them on her belly and grinning.

Steve tries to pull his hand away. “Kono what--”

Danny gets a huge goofy grin on his face as he lifts his other hand to feel her belly too. “Oh wow,” he says, laughing. “Steve, the baby’s kicking.”

“What,” Steve says, frowning and hesitantly touching her belly with only one finger. “I don’t feel any--”

Danny laughs and pushes Steve’s hand down flat on her belly, smacking Steve’s back with his other hand. “It’s a stomach, Steve, it ain’t gonna bite you.”

“Woah!” Steve yanks his hand back and then immediately puts it back, pressing harder at the little tiny movements under his fingers. “Holy hell, there’s a little tiny person in there!”

“I didn’t expect to walk into a fully clothed threesome, is what I didn’t expect to walk into today,” Chin says, grinning as he walks up to the table. “What are you guys doing molesting my cousin’s belly?”

“She’s kicking,” Kono says, blinking back tears. She takes Chin’s hand in hers and brings it to her belly and laughs when it’s the biggest kick yet. “She recognizes blood, cuz.”

“I used to spend hours feeling Rach’s belly,” Danny says softly, staring down at her tummy. “Sitting on the couch, laying in bed… just waiting for the next kick.”

Steve frowns at him. “Danny?”

Danny blinks a few times and Kono realizes he’s got one single solitary tear on his cheek that he quickly reaches up to wipe away. He laughs. “You don’t get it. You’re not Dads. It’s the most amazing thing, when you feel that first kick. You get this sense of oh wow. It’s real. It’s actually there. That’s happening, and I have to protect it.”

Chin bends down and whispers conspiratorially at Kono’s belly. “Uncle Danny is the sappy one.”

Danny laughs and slaps Chin on the back, but Kono can see relief on his face for Chin lightening the mood. Giving Kono a half hug from the side he kisses her cheek and says congrats before going into his office. She watches Steve watch him.

“He’s okay,” Chin says softly, swatting at Steve’s arm. “Stop worrying.”

“He pretends like he’s fine with Charlie,” Steve says absently, turning back to them. “Like he’s come to terms with missing three years of his life, like he didn’t miss the pregnancy, like he’s totally fine with not feeling him kick in her belly.” He shrugs. “I just hate it for him.”

Kono sits down heavily. “Oh God.”

Chin looks at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m hurting both of them,” she says, motioning. “Danny by reminding him of what he didn’t get with Charlie, and Adam for… for just, for not being able to be here.”

As with everything with the pregnancy, every wonderful thing is also the most heartbreaking thing. She’s never missed Adam more than she does right now.

+

“Baby.”

“Why didn’t you fight it? Why did you even turn yourself in,” she yells, fingers gripping angrily to the phone, her stomach twisting in nausea and anger.

Adam, closes his eyes and lowers his head. “It was this or five years, Kono. At the time I thought it was better to take 18 months than risk 5 years.”

“Or none,” she yells, slamming her fist against the table. “If we’d gotten a good lawyer, it was self defense Adam!”

“Kono, please. I don’t think it’s good for you to be this upset with the baby--”

“Don’t,” she growls, anger so deep and visceral she can literally feel it travelling through her bloodstream. “You shut the fuck up about what’s good for the baby. You don’t know, you’re not even here. You’re not the one with this seven inch living being in your stomach every day, reminding me that she has no father!”

Adams jaw clenches just slightly. “You agreed, Kono, can I just remind you that you agreed with me after we met with the lawyers?”

“After the fact,” she spits out. “After you’d already taken it upon yourself to come confess to the police. You should have come to me, you should have come to us. Me, or Danny, or Steve. Chin. We would have figured this out!”

“I’ve put you all through so much already,” he says, tired, exhausted, wrecked. She wants to reach over and strangle him but beyond that she wants to kiss every inch of his face and make those lines go away even as she’s yelling. “Steve, Chin, Danny… they’ve already done so much for us. I’ve asked too much from them. And you. I’m doing this for us, baby. I’m doing this so we can start fresh, so we can be safe and not looking over our shoulders for the Yakuza or the law--”

“Stop explaining,” she yells, closing her eyes and reaching up to scrub at her face. “I know. I know, okay? I’m just so tired,” she says, taking a deep breath and looking up to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just so tired, and I hate that you’re not here.”

“I hate it too. You get that right?”

“Yeah,” she says, feeling drained and a headache pounding in her head.

+

She has a particularly bad day during her 21st week and breaks down in the middle of holding her gun on a suspect. The guy takes advantage of her distraction to shove her to the ground and skirt past her only to be bodily tackled to the ground by Steve.

Chins eyes dart to her. “Kono?”

“He called me fat,” she says, like it’s somehow logical, and then she cracks up laughing. “He called me fat and I lost it and he got away, oh my God, I’m an idiot!”

Danny’s mouth quirks on a smile but Steve and Chin both look like they’re trying to talk someone down off of the ledge. “Not fat, babe. Pleasantly pregnant.”

“Oh, is it better if you say it in a cute way,” she bitches at him, her laugh cutting off as she glares daggers at him.

Danny shrugs. “I thought maybe. Could be wrong.”

“It’s not okay that I just did that,” she says, glaring at him. “It’s not okay that I lost it with my gun pointed to his face, what if I’d shot him instead of started crying?!”

Danny shrugs again. “He’s a murderer, he had it coming.”

“Danny,” Kono squawks, but her mouth quirks on a reluctant grin.

Danny laughs. “Kono,” he says back, mirroring her tone.

“Okay, can we go now though,” Steve says, shoving the suspect at Danny. “Book ‘em Danno.”

Kono look at Steve. “It’s not okay.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not.”

She nods, feeling calmer. “I should maybe not be in the field,” she says finally.

Chin puts a hand on her shoulder. “It was gonna come to that eventually.”

“Sucks,” she grumbles to herself as she walks towards their cars. “I mean, me the damsel, really?”

“Damsel not so much,” Chin says, grinning at her. “Crazy person, yes.”

She smacks him in the chest but laughs just as much as he does.

+

“Can I ask you something, and you’ll be totally, completely honest about it?”

Danny frowns at her from next to her on the couch, stretching a hand out across the back of the couch. “Always.”

“Is this hard for you,” she asks, looking down at the bowl of popcorn sitting on her belly because she can’t look at him. “Being here for this?”

“Why would it be hard?”

“Because this isn’t fair to you, to ask you to help me all the time and come over three times a week and bring me chocolate and oranges and tell me it’s okay that I cried because I ran out of toilet paper,” she says, shrugging and picking through pieces of popcorn like she’s looking for the perfect one. “It’s not your kid, I mean, and after what Rachel did to you with Charlie…” She looks up, biting her lip. “I feel like an asshole, asking you do this like it’s yours.”

“You never asked me to, hon,” he says, reaching over and giving her neck a squeeze. “I want to be here for you. It’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“I’m enjoying myself,” he says, grinning. “This isn’t a burden, Kono. I enjoyed Rachel’s pregnancy…. Crazy aside. Or hell, I even enjoyed her crazy,” he says, laughing. “And I may even enjoy your brand of crazy more because it involves a lot of swinging emotions followed by you berating yourself for being crazy. Rachel never wanted to admit when she was being crazy.”

She frowns at him. “Okay, you called me crazy like fourteen times there, kinda pissing me off.”

He snorts. “Am I wrong?”

“No but it still pisses me off,” she says, but she laughs anyway, and relaxes as he rubs her neck gently. “You’re sure it’s not a constant reminder of what you didn’t get to do with Charlie?”

A cloud passes over his face and he looks away, his hand stilling.

“Honesty, Danny. You said.”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “It is. It does remind me of what she robbed me of,” he says quietly, not looking at her. “Not just the good but the bad. The cravings, the mood swings, feeling the baby kick, making plans for the future, dreams of what will come.”

“I fucking hate her,” Kono says, not intending to.

He laughs and looks at her. “Yeah, I do too sometimes. But mostly I’m just glad I get to know now, and I’ve got the whole rest of Charlie’s life for the rest.” He threads his fingers through her hair and tugs gently. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy to be here for you, Kono.”

She reaches up and grabs his hand, bringing it down between them and threading her fingers through his, squeezing it. “Do you promise if it upsets you too much that you’ll tell me to scram?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Danny.”

“It won’t be too much, Kono,” he says. “Hey.” He moves his head into her line of sight until they catch eyes. “Hey, really. It won’t be too much.”

“Okay,” she says, but part of her doesn’t really believe him. Part of her thinks Danny’s just that kind of guy, the kind that will intentionally break his own heart if that’s what it takes to make someone else happy. She feels selfish taking him at his word, but she feels too lonely and vulnerable to really push it. “Thanks.”

They fall asleep on the couch with her head in his lap and it’s the best she’s slept in months.

+

The doctor smiles as she passes the wand over Kono’s belly. “Do you want to know the sex?”

“It’s a girl,” Kono says, and then she squeezes her eyes shut. “Right? I mean, I’ve been thinking girl this whole time, but a boy’s okay too.”

“Plus boys can wear pink too,” Danny says, leaning back in the chair beside her, grinning lazily. “Maybe not dresses, but shirts.”

“Shutup,” Kono says, swatting him. Looking at the doctor she nods. “Yes, please.”

“Yes, it’s a girl,” the doctor says, grinning. “Have you two thought of any names?”

Kono looks at Danny. “Oh.”

“I’m not the.” Danny shifts in his seat, looking away. “That’s between her and the father.” Kono bites her lip and studies his profile.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the doctor says, uncomfortable.

After the doctor leaves Kono gets dressed again behind the curtain and then steps out. Danny’s once again studying the magazines and she rests her hands on his back. “Adam and I were thinking Noni. My Mom’s name.”

He turns around. “That’s pretty. Noni Noshimuri.” He grins. “Yeah, that’s nice.”

The tears come unexpectedly and going from one minute feeling elated and happy and relaxed to absolutely miserable is coming all too often. “Sorry,” she says, as he envelopes her in a hug, drawing her into him and holding tight. “I don’t even know why.”

“It’s a lot, hon, I get it,” he says into her hair. “He should be here. He should be the one holding your hand. He should be looking at the sonogram with you, hearing the heartbeat.”

“We keep fighting,” she says, and she hasn’t told anyone about any of her visits to Halawa. “I miss him so much and then I see him and I’m just so fucking angry he’s not here.”

His arms tighten around her. “I know. Wanna hug him and wanna smack him, I’m familiar with the conundrum.”

“I don’t think this is pregnancy crazy,” she says, withdrawing from the hug and reaching up to swipe at her face. She used to never ever cry in front of people, but Danny’s seen her cry so much it’s not even embarrassing anymore. “I think this is just crazy, crazy.”

“Little of both,” he says, wry grin on his face as he reaches up to lift her chin up. “But I love ya anyway.”

And that’s the thing of it, is that he always knows how to make her go from outright miserable to grinning and meaning it.

+

“So Uncle Danny says are you out of your ever loving mind, you big gigantor freak, and I’m paraphrasing you understand because you have baby ears and Uncle Lou shouldn’t be repeating what grown men say to each other to virgin ears, and Uncle Steve tries to pretend he’s annoyed but really he’s just doing what he always does, which is the craziest, most insane thing he can, and I think 90% of it is precisely because it makes your Uncle Danny go apoplectic and his hands wave around like a windmill on full tilt--”

Kono is laughing as Lou lays his head on her lap in the office and tells her belly the story he is referring to as The Story of Every Day Life With Two Nincompoops Named Danno and Stevo. She loves Lou’s storytime, if for no other reason than it’s a guaranteed fifteen to thirty minutes when she will be laughing so hard she may pee on herself and that happens all too rarely these days (laughing, not peeing on herself).

“And you see, while normal human beings like your Momma and Uncle Chin and me may find your Uncle Danny’s particular brand of ranting tiresome or some may say annoying as all get out, your Uncle Steve is very entertained by this, because I think he must’ve been dropped on his head as a child a one or twenty too many times.”

Kono lays her head back against the back of the couch and closes her eyes, grinning from ear to ear and chuckling. She had found it annoying at first but honestly, after five years of it she really was almost as amused by it as Steve was. Not that she’d ever admit that.

“And that’s it for Uncle Lou’s Storytime today kiddo,” he says, sitting up and stretching. “If I don’t sit up Imma fall asleep in your lap and your legs will become necrotic from lack of bloodflow.”

“Thanks,” she says, waving and grinning at him as he heads out the door. “Hey, can you hit the lights? I think I’m gonna take a nap.”

“As you wish, madam,” he says, and snicks the lights off with a flick.

“What are you doing,” Steve’s loud voice says as he and Danny come into the bull pin. It occurs to her too late that they likely don’t realize she’s there.

Danny, obviously already annoyed, spreads his hands wide. “What the hell do you mean what am I doing? I’m helping her. I’m being helpful.”

Steve crosses his arms and comes to a stop, turning to face him. “Danny is that really all it is?”

“Yes, Steven, that’s really all it is.”

Steve tilts his head. “You’re not getting in over your head?”

Danny shakes his head, points at him, rolls his eyes, and then sidesteps him. “Leave it.”

Steve follows, like she couldn’t have guessed he would. “She’s gorgeous, and she’s Kono, and you’re spending the night at her house in the middle of the week?”

“Once, Steven, I fell asleep on her couch once. This is difficult for her! She’s all alone!”

“She’s not alone, she’s got us, all of us, Danny. Let us help you help her.”

Danny whirls on him, poking him in the chest. “Help her all you want, who’s stopping you?!”

“Danny.”

“No seriously, who’s stopping you? I’m just saying, do you know the signs to look for? Do you know the special breed of crazy that women have on their hormones? Do you know how to interpret the look that says if I don’t get chocolate this very fucking second I am going to shoot everyone in sight? Because I do, Steve. I do. I’ve done it. Been there, done it, did it again.”

Steve scrubs at his face and then puts his hands on Danny’s shoulders. “And that’s the fucking point, Danny, god damn, I’m trying to look out for you!” He shakes him slightly. “I saw what you went through with Rachel with Charlie. How you were there for her even when she was telling you he wasn’t yours. How hard that was for you.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “This isn’t that. This is Kono.”

“I know, Danny, but I know you. I know you, okay buddy? And I know when you get in over your head, I know when you’re overinvested.” Steve lets his hands fall to his side as Danny backs out of his grasp to pace. “This isn’t your kid, there’s no chance this is your kid this time, that won’t change.”

Danny levels him with a look that could kill, and it twists angry in her gut. “Fuck you.”

“Partner, listen to me,” Steve tries, his voice lowering. “Okay? Listen. I’m not saying you’re not an amazing person for being there for her in this. You are. For so many things, not even just to do with this, you’re one of the most caring, loving, loyal friends anyone could ever ask for. I just want to make sure you’re not falling for her. Because she’s married, and she’s having someone else’s kid.”

Danny’s hands shoot out. “Wow. So I’m just a dumb fucking sap in your eyes huh? I’m just this idiot that’s so desperate for love that he’s willing to fall in love with a married woman and take advantage of her while she’s pregnant.” He nods, frowning at Steve. “Nice, buddy. Glad to know how you feel about me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all, Danny.”

Danny laughs a humorless laugh. “It really kind of is.”

“Okay, fine, yes, I’m saying that’s what I’m afraid of, but it’s not an insult! It’s you being a great guy, and me worrying, okay? Am I wrong?” Steve spreads his hands in much the same way Danny does, and it strikes Kono just how many gestures they now share of each others. Another time, she may smile about that. “Think about it, Danny. And you don’t have to admit it to me, it doesn’t matter, I just want you to think about it. Isn’t some small part of you falling in love with her?”

“Here’s what you don’t get, Steve, so listen up,” Danny says, and he’s speaking low and serious and she almost can’t hear him. “It does not matter how I feel. Kono deserves to not have to go through this alone. If I can make this process one iota easier for her, if I can be there for her when Adam can’t, if I can just help her feel okay for one minute longer than she would otherwise, then that’s what I’m doing.”

Steve blinks at him as if he wasn’t expecting that. After a moments silence, he blinks again. “It matters how you feel, Danny.”

“It doesn’t.”

Steve steps forward, closer. “It does. To me it does.”

Danny shakes his head. “Not with this. It doesn’t. I am clear on what I am in this, okay? So stop.”

“Danny, one of these days you need to let yourself be happy.” Steve scrubs the back of his neck and watches Danny pace in front of him. “You need to stop being everything that everybody else wants you to be for them and be whatever you need you to be for you to be happy, okay? I’m tired of watching my best friend be miserable.”

“Then stop giving me shit, huh?” With that, Danny turns and walks towards the door.

“Danny. Come on man, don’t walk away angry.” Steve slams a hand down on the computer table as Danny walks through the door and leaves. “Danny!”

+

“One third down,” Adam says, smiling at her. “If you think of it that way maybe it doesn’t seem so bad.”

Kono nods. “Except for how that means you have two thirds left, which means a year. And the baby will be here in three months.”

Adam gets a blank look on his face, and before this all happened it’s not something she ever saw on him. Anger, yes. Sadness, yes. Happiness, yes. Never nothingness. They’re getting really good at nothingness through this glass barrier of theirs.

“You’re healthy? The baby’s healthy?”

Kono nods. “Time’s up, I gotta go.”

“Baby I love you,” he says, but she’s already got the phone hung up so it’s easy to pretend she didn’t hear it so she doesn’t have to say it back.

+

“You haven’t smiled at me in ten days,” Danny says as she walks up her sidewalk to her house. He’s sitting on the stoop with bags of takeout and a determined look on his face. “And I’m done with you avoiding me.”

“I’m not avoiding you, Danny,” she says, stepping around him and unlocking her door to go inside. She busies herself with tidying up so she doesn’t have to look at him. “I work with you every day, maybe I’m just sick of your face.”

He laughs. “Yeah, maybe, I can see how that would happen.” He sets the bags down on the counter, leans against it, and just looks at her. She can feel his gaze on her and she feels like a suspect. Like he’s weighing her up, trying to decide which tactic will work best to get her to confess. “So I can either just unpack the food and start eating without you, or you can join me and we can talk like civilized people instead of me watching you walk around like the Susie Homemaker that you are not.”

“What does that mean, that I’m not domestic enough for you,” she snaps, looking at him finally to glare at him. “So I keep an unkempt house, so what, I’m gonna make a horrible mother?”

His eyes widen and his hands fall apart. “What? Where did you pull that from?”

“I can clean my house, Danny,” she says, picking up dirty laundry from the floor with her feet, bending to take it from between her toes. She glances over at him to see him smiling. “What are you smiling at?”

He shrugs. “Nothing, it’s just cute, using you’re feet like that, like you’re a monkey.”

She laughs. “Yeah, Adam always used to laugh at me for that too.”

Danny studies her for a moment and then nods to himself before turning around to unpack the bags. “I got spaghetti, lasagna, breadsticks with marinara, and!” He holds up ice cream. “Your favorite double chocolate fudge ice cream that’s so ridiculously decadent it feels like you’re eating velvet.”

She walks over to him and takes the ice cream from him. “Except it’s half melted,” she says ruefully, peering down into it through the clear window on top before sticking it in her freezer. “Seriously, you sat on my stoop for how long? With ice cream? Why didn’t you let yourself in and put it in the freezer?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Kono you haven’t talked to me in 2 weeks except in monosyllables. I didn’t feel like we were in the right place for me to be sitting in your kitchen when you got home.”

She sits down at the table and lets him set up their dinner. He knows where the silverware is, he knows where the glasses are. He knows the right ratio of ice to tea she prefers. It’s all so nice and easy and perfect and exactly what she wants, and it rips a fucking hole in her heart.

When he sits down she looks at him and feels a lump form in her throat. “You lied to me.”

He forks some lasagna onto his plate as his eyes flick to her. “I did what?”

“You said you’d tell me,” she says, meeting his gaze. “Your feelings matter, Danny.”

He blinks at her and his hands freeze. “What?”

“Your feelings matter, Danny. I don’t want you to be miserable because of me.”

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fucking Steven.”

“You said you would tell me if it got to be too much for you.”

“And it hasn’t, no matter what Steve told you,” he says fiercely, annoyed. He reaches over and grabs her hand. “Listen, he’s being over protective and he doesn’t know what he’s talking--”

“I was there,” she says, taking her hand back. “He didn’t tell me anything, I heard the conversation.”

He chews on his lip and looks away. “Listen, Kono.” He takes a deep breath. “I told you that yes, there are certain aspects that remind me of things that are painful for me.”

“So. Stop then,” she says, sniffing and trying to hold in her tears.

“Excuse me but you don’t get to tell me that,” he says, twisting his fork in the spaghetti and raising an eyebrow at her. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do, what I can and can’t handle. I told him and I’m telling you, it’s not too much, I’m not in over my head, I know what I’m doing here, and what I’m doing is being there for you. You don’t get to tell me I can’t do that.”

She stares at him, her mouth falling open a little. “I don’t get to… I don’t get to tell you that you can’t be there for me? What if I don’t want you there for me? What if I’m tired of you being there all the time, huh? What if you make me feel like a jerk for hurting you by letting you be there for me, maybe you don’t get to tell me what I get to or don’t get to do!”

He looks at her, grins, and pops a big mouthful of spaghetti in his mouth. “Nope,” he says through it, shaking his head. “Not buying it.”

“Danny.”

“Shut up and eat,” he says, pointing at the offerings. “Get a little of both or all of each, whatever, there’s two servings of each. And I know you love their breadsticks.”

She blinks at him and wonders just exactly what kind of brain damage he’d suffered as a child that made him the way he is. “I don’t know whose more hardheaded, me or you.”

“I think it’s me, cuz I just won the argument,” he says, poking his fork into the pile of spaghetti and unceremoniously dropping it on her plate. “Eat up.”

“I don’t know if me and Adam are gonna make it,” she says suddenly, because she just can’t hold it in anymore.

He freezes with his fork halfway to his mouth. “You can’t think like that.”

“The hell I can’t,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Kono, don’t make any important decisions while you’re feeling like this. Not while you’re all over the place emotionally and Adam’s still locked up.”

She looks miserably at her plate. “I didn’t say I’d made any decisions, I just… I can’t even stand to look at him.”

“Well,” he says, handing her a breadstick. “Actually that’s normal too ya know.” He grins. “Most women hate their husbands when they’re in their third trimester.”

She laughs and throws the breadstick at his head. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Danny,” she says, but he laughs again anyway because he’s picking parmesan bits out of his hair and frowning at her. “Thanks for dinner.”

+

“So uh, what,” Steve says, arms crossed as he looks up at her. “I just… talk?”

“Yeah,” she says, smacking him in the forehead. “It’s not hard. You know how to talk.”

“Uh, hey. Hey baby Kono,” he says. He closes his eyes. “I feel stupid. I’m talking to your bellybutton.”

She laughs and pats his head. “Come on, it’s not that hard. You don’t have to talk into my bellybutton, just talk, she can hear you.”

“Hey… hey baby. It’s your Uncle Steve. Your uh. Your Mom wants me to talk to you.”

“Jesus,” she says, rolling her eyes and looking up at Danny, grinning across the room. “He’s pathetic.”

“Just a little,” Danny says, nodding at Steve’s glare. “Just talk to her, Steve. Tell her how to drop kick someone. Tell her that Uncle Steve and Uncle Danny can’t wait to take her fishing. Tell her--”

“Ya know, yeah, here’s what you need to know, little Noni,” Steve says, turning to stare up at the ceiling. “Is that whenever your Uncle Danny starts talking, what you do is, you ignore him. You roll your eyes and you ignore everything he’s saying, because he is a tiny, tiny little man--”

“Hey!”

“-- that just wants to inflict misery on everyone around him, so he just talks and talks and bitches and bitches and whines and whines. Basically he’s Linus with better hair, okay?”

“Hey, woah, why I gotta be Linus,” Danny squawks.

“Why is he Linus you ask? Okay, I’ll tell you, because Linus is a little whiner that sucks his thumb and has to have his bankie with him at all times because he wants to put it over his head and cover up and hide from all the everything all the time.”

Kono giggles endlessly as Danny rolls his eyes and retorts, “All the everything all the time, wow, you’re a wordsmith.”

“With better hair,” Steve says, pointing at Danny and grinning. “I said with better hair.”

Danny snorts. “Well there’s that then, thanks.”

“But,” Steve says, reaching over and splaying a hand over Kono’s belly, smile fading. “But me and your Uncle Danno, we’ll always have your back. Always, always.”

“Steve,” Kono says, swatting at him and reaching up to wipe a tear away. “You weren’t supposed to get all serious. This is story time, and Lou’s not here! You’re supposed to make me laugh.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “In that case, let me just explain what we’re gonna do to any and all boyfriends you try to have, Noni. We will kick them in the nuts if they ever touch you. You’re kind of going to hate us when you’re sixteen.”

“Hell, Gracie’s starting to hate us now at thirteen,” Danny says, grinning.

“Speak for yourself there, buddy, Gracie worships her Uncle Steve,” Steve says, grinning back.

“Yeah,” Danny says fondly, leaning against the doorway. “She kinda does.”

+

“I thought maybe you weren’t going to come see me again for a while,” Adam says softly, splaying a finger on the glass window like he’s wishing it was her he was touching.

“I’m sorry,” she says, but she can’t meet his eyes. “I’m just having a really hard time not hating you right now. I’m trying to work through it.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “I understand.”

“Are you doing okay? Are you able to lay low and stay out of trouble?”

“Yeah,” he says, grinning slightly. “I’m still pretty aren’t I? No black eyes and unsightly bruises.”

She cracks a small smile and looks up at him. “Yeah, I guess you are.”

“Eleven months,” he says. “330 days.”

She closes her eyes. “It’s too long.”

“Nothings too long if it means you’re safe, Kono,” he says. “You and Noni, if you’re safe, I’d stay in here forever.”

She grinds her teeth and finally looks back at him. “Don’t you get it? I’d rather be on the fucking run with you then safe, alone, in our home, 7 months pregnant while you’re in here.”

He shakes his head. “Never,” he says. “And if you need to hate me for that, you go right ahead.”

*

“By the way Uncle D, your lady’s looking fine all knocked up,” Eric says, grinning at Kono. “Beauty-ful.”

Danny glares at him. “What did I tell you about that? It’s Danny or Detective Williams in public. You wanna call me Uncle D at home, fine, I guess I can’t stop you, but here at work? No.”

“Yo alright, Uncle Danny, De-tec-tive Williams.” He laughs and rolls his eyes at Kono and she laughs back.

“And she’s not my lady, she’s my--” Danny falters, and looks at her. “I don’t know what to… Partner? Coworker?”

“Friend,” Kono says, raising her eyebrows. “Sidekick?”

“What about a sidechick,” Eric says, snorting at himself.

“No,” Danny says, tapping Eric in the middle of his forehead. “No, no, and no.”

“Just Kono, okay,” she says, smacking Eric on the arm as they leave the lab. “Just call me that how ‘bout?”

“Ok sexy!”

“No,” Danny yells from the doorway, glaring daggers. “I swear to god!”

Kono grins as they walk down the hallway. “He’s just ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously stupid.”

“I was gonna say ridiculously cute,” she says, laughing.

“Ugh, he’s a fucking nightmare,” he says, but he grins back.

“Nah, ya love him.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “I do. He just needs to learn how to take the Jersey out of his work persona.”

“I am now picturing you, just like him back in Jersey,” she says, a fond smile on her face. “Calling chicks broads and saying how you doin’?”

He scruffs the back of his neck and looks down. “Maybe a little bit.”

She cackles as the tips of his ears turn pink and knocks her shoulder into his. “Aw, Danny. That’s maybe the cutest thing I’ve heard yet. I can picture it now, Baby Danny with his blond pompadour flirting with women by saying, ey, yo, what’s shakin’ good lookin’?”

He laughs, loud and startled, and stops in the middle of the hallway. “Alright, stop right there, little less Andrew Dice Clay, huh? I wasn’t that guy!”

She giggles. “So? What were you like?”

His eyes narrow at her and a slow grin spreads on his face. He tilts his head to the side, his smile widens and he gives her a slow, slow once over. “Hey honey,” he says, leaning against the wall. “Can I buy a lady a drink?”

Her laugh dies in her throat and she blinks a little. “Uh. Okay, so maybe you had a little more game than E-Train.”

His grin widens, less flirty and more Danny. “Had? Honey, have! Just cuz I don’t throw it around every which way from Sunday don’t mean I don’t know how to get right,” he says, in a hugely put on thick accent as he throws an arm around her. “Fuggeddaboutit.”

As they start back to the car his arm stays in place and she gives herself a mental shake to get over that hot flush that swept over her at the way Danny had looked at her. “So,” she says, finally. “Whose Andrew Dice Clay?”

He stops dead in his tracks and puts a hand to his heart. “Oh that is just. That hurts that you don’t know that. It physically hurts me.”

+

“So the big dopey guy says to the little princess, hey, what are those on your feet, are those sandles? And she says, yes, they are, that’s what you wear in the sand. And he says no no no, you wear proper shoes, with laces. And you always keep them tied, and you don’t go in the sand with them, because then the sand gets in your shoes and cuts your feet all to bits because sand is stupid and it likes to punish you by sticking to your everything everywhere and never ever coming off, even when you shower fifteen times.”

Kono runs her fingers through Danny’s hair as he tells another marathon story, because the man can talk for days if you let him, and he will. His stories have lasted hours before, and she never once has asked him to stop, because his stories are the best.

“Oh yes, is that your little foot there kicking me in the eye? That’s right princess, that’s what you put shoes on. Your mom’s going to put sandles on you I know this, because your mom is secretly a beach bum in her heart and she’s going to teach you how to surf when you’re still in diapers I can guarantee this, which is such such such a bad idea because remember what I said about sand getting everywhere and not coming off? Diaper rash is bad enough by itself, honey, trust that.”

“She’s so much more active when you’re talking,” Kono says, grinning down at him. “Sometimes at the office if you haven’t talked in a while and suddenly you do off she goes, just kick kick kick. Uncle Danno’s here, kick kick.”

He grins up at her. “Is that right kiddo? You little stinker.”

“Lou says she’s hanging around with you too much. She’s stomping her feet in anger like you do.”

He laughs and it’s low and rumbles in her belly and it makes her feel warm and fuzzy and not for the first time like she wants this moment to never end.

“It’s getting late,” she says instead, but still she strokes her fingers through his hair. So soft and silky, his mouth a thin line quirked up at the end on a grin. Stubble on his cheek rubbing against her belly occasionally. “Ten thirty on a work night.”

“Can I just…” He frowns, his thumb pressing into her belly, lightly tracing down in a gentle arc. “I miss this. Just. She keeps poking me, it’s been so long since…”

“Yeah,” she says softly, rubbing her hand down his arm. “As long as you want.”

He falls asleep with his hand curled around her side and his nose just barely touching her belly. The baby falls asleep at the same time, but Kono stays awake tracing the lines of Danny’s button up striped shirt down his arm for another hour before she rests her head back and allows sleep to take her as well.

+

“You don’t have to come see me if that’s easier for you,” Adam says, avoiding looking at his eyes. “I don’t want to upset you like this.”

Kono grits her teeth together. “Shut up and just tell me you miss me.”

+

“Hey!” She smacks Danny upside the head and then punches him in the arm. “Idiot!”

He rubs his arm and looks at Steve. “What was that for?”

“I was on the comms you jerk,” she growls at him. “You guys leave me here to talk to you like I’m at the watchtower directing you and then I hear you get shot at and there’s all this noise and I can’t tell if ya’ll are okay or not! And then you don’t even call me after!”

“We didn’t get hit,” Steve says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “There was a guy we didn’t see at first but we got him.”

“You,” she says, pointing at Danny. “You stay safe, you hear me! Whose gonna eat the rest of the double fudge chocolate ice cream with me?”

Danny smiles and leans over to kiss her on the cheek. “Yes dear,” he says, and then squeezes her shoulder and walks past her to his office.

“I’m fine too by the way,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Oh you, you’re crazy, I’m used to you getting shot at,” she says, waving a hand. “You just need to stop him getting shot at, at least until I have this baby. I can’t be sitting here, worrying all the damn time.”

She ignores the way he watches her for a moment before nodding and walking into his own office. She hugs her arms to her body and wills her heart to stop beating so fast.

+

Chin rests his cheek against Kono’s belly and laughs as the baby kicks and pushes, jostles his head around. “Not even born yet and already a fighter. If she weren’t in your belly I’d still know she was yours, cuz.”

Kono laughed, plucking popcorn out of the bowl on Chin’s chest. “Yeah, she’s a feisty little bitch.”

“How is Adam,” Chin asks, eyes sober and looking directly into her soul when she screws up the courage to meet them.

“He’s. I don’t really know,” Kono says, glancing away. “He’s surviving.”

“And you,” he asks, voice just as sober as his look. “Are you surviving?”

“Oh you know me, cuz, I’m always good,” she says, swatting him on the leg and stuffing her face with yet more popcorn.

“You’ve never been able to lie to me, Kono. I’ve always known.”

She sighs. “Most of the time I’m okay. During the day, when I’m busy. When I’ve got stuff to do. Most of the time I’m okay until I go to bed even, able to distract myself with the tv or cleaning or… I’ve found a new passion for cleaning the floorboards, I’ve never touched the things but somehow now it’s of dire importance.”

“I think that’s called nesting,” Chin says, and then grins. “Or psychosis.”

“But when I try to go to bed that’s when I just get so lonely. He’s supposed to be next to me. He’s supposed to be holding my hand. He’s supposed to be cleaning the baseboards with me. He’s supposed to be in this with me.”

“I know.”

“I think I’d be a complete wreck if it weren’t for Danny,” she confesses finally. This whole time she’s been afraid to voice just how much she’s relied on Danny to anyone but herself. Afraid of what it says about her, as a person and as a wife. Afraid of what it’s becoming, of what it means. “I think I’d be in a mental institution if he wasn’t here to tell me I’m normal. That I’m supposed to freak out at nothing. It’s okay if I cry because I’m tired of having to pee all the damn time. It’s normal to resent the back pain. That I’ll be a good mother.”

“E ku’u aloha,” he whispers, wrapping a hand around hers, covering it with his other. “You’ll be the best mother.”

Tears fall, like they always seem to do these days. “Chin, I don’t even know if I wish it was Adam instead. I’m not even sure if he’d know what to do. Danny’s done this. He’s been. He’s amazing, he’s been perfect.”

“We’ve always known Danny was amazing,” Chin says with a soft smile. “Don’t know that I’d go so far as to say perfect, but…”

“Sometimes I catch myself thinking it would all be so much easier, better if…” She swallows and closes her eyes. “If it was his. If it was us.”

“Do you really think that, or do you think maybe you’re just grasping at whatever makes day to day life easier,” he asks. “Because maybe it’s easier than dealing with reality?”

“Don’t judge me, Chin.”

“Never,” he says, squeezing her hand. “I will never judge you. I just want you to be sure, and I’m not sure you’re in a place where logic matters right now.”

“I know,” she says.

“I just want you happy, cuz.”

“I don’t even know what that is anymore,” she says, and then he’s wrapping his arms around her and it’s the only place she wants to be for maybe the next year or so. In Chin’s protective arms, because Chin is always and constant and everything. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

+

Lou buys her about a truck’s worth of diapers ranging from size 0 to 6 months, burping rags, teething rings, pacifiers, and bottles. “No such thing as too prepared,” he’d said with a wink.

Steve splurges and must have spent a fortune on buying the most ridiculously extravagant, full of bells and whistles, stroller known to mankind. She’s pretty sure the kid could operate a covert op out of that thing.

Chin buys her a crib and a mobile and pillows and blankets and sheets and a changing table and a dresser and big foot tall wooden letters painted neon pink spelling N O N I.

She tells Danny he’s not allowed to buy her anything at all. “I mean it.”

“But Kono!”

“Nothing Danny,” she says, jabbing him in the chest. “You’ve been my right hand man this entire time, you’ve put in more man hours and blood and sweat and tears than anyone else, you painted the babies room with me at 2 am in the morning because I got a bug up my ass about it!”

Danny laughed. “Okay well that was fun though.”

“You,” she says, making sure no one else can hear them, “have been what’s made me able to hold any amount of sanity I have left together, you’ve made this possible for me and never asked for anything in return, and I love you, and you are not allowed to buy me anything because there is no amount of money that would ever equal what you’ve already done.”

“Come here, you,” he’d says, his voice choking off and she’ hadn’t meant to make either of them cry but her own cheeks are wet as he pulls her into a hug and kisses her cheek. “I love you too.”

When she opens the chest of drawers a few days later she doesn’t need anyone to tell her that the reason they’re full of clothes instead of empty the way they had been that morning was because Danny never was good at following orders. She spends hours grinning and sorting through all the miniature footed pajamas and t shirts and dresses and frilly underpants.

Hanging on the wall by the N O N I letters is a little tiny surfboard that’s pastel blue with a streak of neon pink up the middle, the initials NN etched into it. It breaks her heart in both directions, and she laughs and cries in equal parts for the better part of an hour as she cradles it in her arms.

+

Two weeks out from her due date she and Danny sit on the couch watching Point Break on the tv but really they haven’t even seen one second of it because these days the noise of the tv has become nothing more than background noise.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m totally serious.”

“You’ll be fine,” Danny says, pulling her to him with his arm around her. “You mother our incompetent asses all day every day, you’ll figure out the baby in no time flat.”

“But I’ve never even babysat properly!”

He laughs. “Stop it. You’re great with Charlie. Everyone thinks they need to read all these books and instruction manuals and they overanalyze--”

“Eleven,” Kono says, nodding. “I’ve read eleven and I feel like I haven’t retained one actual sentence.”

He laughs and his breath smells like the chocolate from their desert. “See? Overanalyzing. You just need to relax and trust me when I say it will all come naturally. You’ll pick up that baby girl and look into her eyes and you will just know.”

She sighs, because when he says it just sounds so easy and true. “You’ll still be here right?”

He grins and reaches up to tug on her ear. “I’ll be wherever you tell me to be.”

His eyes drift back over to the television and he starts saying something about Keanu Reeves and how jealous Max would be not having been invited, but she tunes him out and just studies the side of his face. His strong jaw line, the barely there fuzz of a beard growing in. The crinkles on the side of his eyes. “Danny?”

His eyes flicker towards her. “Hm?”

“I used to have a crush on you,” she says.

He snorts. “Did you?” At her nod he grins widely. “Damn. When was that?”

“Forever,” she says, somehow not finding it hard to meet his eyes. She feels like it should have been hard, but everything about Danny is so easy these days. “Kinda since the day I met you.”

He frowns slightly. “Really?” At her nod his frown deepens. “And why did you never, ever let me know that?”

She rolls her eyes and gives him a look. “Come on. I was the rookie cop on her first year. Do I wanna be that girl?”

“Yeah I can see that,” he says, nodding. He grins and extracts his arm from around her shoulders. She reaches over to grab his hand before he can retreat any more.

“Danny?”

She’s pretty sure it’s at that moment that he gets it, because his smile fades and his eyes look confused and flustered. He clears his throat. “Yeah?”

She leans in and reaches up to trace his lips with her fingers. “You have really sexy lips.”

He blinks at her. “Kono.”

She smiles, staring down at his lips, and lowers her voice. “Kiss me, Danny.”

“Woah,” he says, and tries to slide out from her grasp, but she doesn’t let up. “Hey.”

“Kiss me,” she whispers against his lips, leaning close. She watches his eyelids fall half closed and slides a hand down his torso over his soft grey cotton shirt. “Danny, kiss me.”

“Shit,” he says, and then he does, his hands coming up to her back, pulling her in, a hand in her hair tilting her head up to cover her mouth with his. It’s breathtaking and spine tingling and his hands come up to cup her cheeks when she lifts to straddle him and he breathes, “Kono.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” she whispers against his mouth, kissing him once, twice, lingering on the third. “I want you to stay here, don’t leave, just stay.”

“Kono, I can’t,” he says, turning his head and breathing. He keeps it turned when she reaches forward and grasps his chin in her fingers, closing his eyes. “Kono, please.”

“Stay.” When he finally allows her to turn his head to look at her, she puts her hands on his chest, catches his eyes, and leans in to kiss him. He sits there and lets her but his lips don’t move and his eyes never shut. Neither do hers.

When she pulls back he licks his lips. “You know this is your hormones right?”

“I’m tired of everyone excusing and dismissing anything and everything I do because of fucking hormones,” she grouses back, but he doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t get mad back, just remains there steady and firm. Her hands still rest on his chest and she can feel his heart beating. “Ever occur to you that maybe I just wanted to kiss you?”

He looks at her and his mouth quirks just slightly. “Ever occur to you I’d like to kiss you too, except for the whole part where you’re husband, the father of this baby in your belly,” he says, resting his hand against her protruding belly, “is in jail because he chose to take the route that made it most likely that you all would be safe when this was over?”

She closes her eyes. “Danny.”

“So, just to spell it out, cover all bases here,” he says, voice kind and gentle, but not in a way that makes her skin crawl like it does when someone treats her like she’s too young or stupid or a child. Just in that Danny way of his that feels like a warm blanket being wrapped around her shoulders. “Not that I’m not interested, not that I’ve never thought about it, but, Kono?” He breaks off to put a finger under her chin, tilting her head until she looks at him instead of the floor. “I’m not that guy. I’m not gonna be that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The guy that takes what he wants only to give it up later, in a year, because you realize you’re still in love with your husband.”

She sighs and slumps into him, burying her head in his neck. “I love you, Danny.”

“Kono.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I do. Have. Since you walked into my office after Ian died, during that first year. My hardest case. You came in to fuss at me for still being at work when Steve wanted me to leave.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, laughing slightly. “I told you I didn’t want to have to see his constipated face.”

“You were the only one who just listened. You just. Listened.” She takes a deep breath and sits up to look at him, propping herself up with her hands on his shoulders. “I have been so lost, Danny. I don’t know up from down, I don’t know how I feel, I don’t know if I’m angry at Adam or if I’m proud of him.” She keeps going, even as a tear falls down her face. “I don’t know how I stumbled my way through these past 8 months except what I do know is if I didn’t have you by my side I don’t think I would’ve been able to.”

“Sure you would’ve,” he says quietly, reaching up to wipe at her cheeks.

“So I’m this insane fucking mess right now and I just, it’s confusing and it’s fucked up and I’m just… Right now I feel like you’re the most important, best, amazing thing in my life, always there, always knowing what to do and when and how and...” She lets out a breath.

“But you love him.”

Sje bites her lip. “He’s my soulmate, Danny.”

“I know.”

“He’s my--”

“Hey,” he says, putting a finger under her chin to catch her eyes. “I know.”

“But I do love you,” she finishes, nodding. “Don’t doubt that please.”

“Okay,” he says, and leans forward to kiss her on the forehead.

+

Over the next few days she hears numerous conversations between Danny and Steve that sound along the lines of, ‘You okay?’ and ‘Drop it, Steve, I’m fine’. It’s always short and hurried and they don’t last long, but she feels crushing guilt every time she hears it.

Danny is gone for the day when she finally goes into Steve’s office and closes the door behind her. “He’s not, is he?”

Steve looks at up at her. “Whose what huh?”

“Danny,” she says, gesturing. “Okay, he’s not okay is he?”

Steve chews on his lip. “Kono, Danny’s fine, he’s just--”

“I didn’t mean to,” she says, angrily wiping as tears fill her eyes. She cries just about every day over something or another, she should have expected this. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

He stands and walks over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I know that.”

“I’m such a mess, Steve,” she says, blinking up at him. “I just wanted to pretend for one fucking minute that my life wasn’t a mess. It would be so much easier if it was him.”

Steve sighs and maneuvers her over to the couch. “Listen, Kono--”

“I know,” she says, “it’s selfish and horrible and I’m a horrible person, but I really do love him, Steve. I do.”

Steve sits next to her and wraps her in his arms, hugging her. “I know you do.”

“I love you too,” she says wetly into his shoulder.

“I know you do,” he says. “You’re trying not to jump my bones right now aren’t you?”

“What,” she squeaks, jerking out of his arms to catch his smirk and the mirth in his eyes. “Oh you ass,” she says, smacking him in the chest. “I take it back. I hate you.”

“You love me,” he says, squeezing her shoulders. “And I love you too. Just take it easy okay? I know things are hard right now but you’ve got all of us. All of us are right here.” He bends down to look her in the eyes better. “Any time, any thing you need, okay? All of us.”

She nods. “Just not him anymore. Got it.”

“Oh no,” Steve says, shaking his head with a wry smile. “Don’t you dare cut him out. He’ll kill you if you do that.”

“But--”

“He wouldn’t have it any other way,” Steve says, shaking his head. “There are things that make this difficult for him, okay? There are. But he wouldn’t do anything different, that I can promise you.”

“But doesn’t that make me an asshole, for letting him even though it hurts him?”

Steve laughs. “Maybe? I don’t know. But I do know that he still wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She slumps against him. “I did try. To push him away a few months ago. He wouldn’t let me.”

“See? So now who’s the asshole?”

Kono laughs. “Oh I see. He is!”

“Yup,” Steve says, squeezing his arm around her. “So stop your crying and come on. I’m gonna take you to dinner. My treat.”

Kono eyes him. “Really?”

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out his wallet, showing her the green in there. “Really. Now come on!”

+

A week out from her due date Danny shows up on her doorstep with takeout bags and more icecream, grinning at her and kissing her on the cheek as he walks past her into the kitchen.

“You’re here,” she says, blinking at him.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy to get rid of me,” he says, quirking her a smile and raising an eyebrow. “Gonna have to do a hell of a lot more than that to get rid of Uncle Danny.”

Kono laughs as she feels the baby start kicking. “Once again, so much activity at the sound of your voice.”

Three hours later her water breaks and Danny grins at her even as she screams in horror, grabs her hand, and takes her to the hospital.

+

“Kono. Oh. She’s amazing.”

Kono grins, propping Noni’s feet up on the ledge and cradling the phone to her shoulder. “Noni, this is daddy.”

“Hi baby,” Adam says, tears falling down his face. “I can’t wait to get to hold you baby. I’m gonna read you bed time stories, and give you piggy back rides, and we’ll have standing dates to eat out just Daddy-daughter time,” he says, leaning forward and tracing his fingers on the glass. “Oh, Kono, I’m so in love with her.”

“We love you too,” she says easily, smiling at him. “Hurry up and get your ass out huh?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now that it's over, can I tell you? I struggled SO HARD with myself over whether or not I wanted them to do it. LOL. Because the Kono/Danny lover wanted them to do it and do it and do it, but the True To Character, like, Integrity Having part of me refused to allow me to do it because Danny wouldn't be that guy. I also left a note for myself on my timeline (don't usually have a timeline but I had to keep the weeks/progression straight cause I was jumping around while writing) that says "Do not fuck Adam, Adam is a good fucking GUY." LOL.
> 
> Also, I know that Danny got with Rachel when she was still with Stan, but that is different. She was his first. She was family. Grace's mom. She was completing his family again. I'm sure he still felt guilt but excused it because this is MY family damnit, Stan is the intruder, I'm just taking MINE back. Kono wasn't his though.


End file.
